Light in the Shadows
by Kate of Carlay
Summary: Written for the Starvation Challenge: Light. POST MOCKINGJAY. They both have shadows in their eyes, but they can also see each other's light.


_**Written for the Starvations monthly writing challenge. This month: Light. Be sure to check it out, lots of fun game and interesting conversations, didnt like mockingjay? come tell us why. Want to grumble about the K/P, come talk to the gale fans. :D**_

**_I'm not SuCo_**

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He doesn't know I'm watching him when he sleeps at night, but he doesn't understand how painful the memories of the past are. He might, but its not the same. His past that haunts him is of a gray eyed girl back where he calls home. She roams through the trees with her arrows and her blond husband and perfect little happily ever after.

She ripped a hole in his heart that I try to fix, but I don't if I can. After all the first love is the one that lasts forever. He tells me she wasn't the first but I don't believe it. Half her life is a lie anyway, but her loss was my gain.

He's so much more than what the others say. They think he's a murderer for designing the bombs that killed children in the war.

That's where we're different, but the same.

To me, he's a hero. He designed one of the final blows to end the Capitol. He had a cause for everything he fought for; his family, friends, life. Me? I'm just a murderer without a cause but no one sees that in me, I have to point it out for the idiots so they can see I killed children for nothing but my own life.

He has been through so much, the suffocating darkness of mines, the pains of having heartstrings pulled, the horrors of war.

Now, he's a military captain for President Paylor, always making sure his uniform his perfect as he dresses first thing in the morning when he thinks I'm asleep and he dresses in the dawn light coming in through the window.

He's become so much but his eyes are still so dark. The passion he has, burns out the rest of him. To most he's an empty shell, burnt out from pain, if only everyone saw how the pain is just a cover up for everything else.

His gray eyes are so dark when he asks me what I'm doing awake, but that spark of passion that flashes in his eyes when he perfects an intricate trap or looks at me is there and all I can do is wrap my arms around Gale's neck and press my lips to his as his passion over comes us both.

He has seen so much darkness in the world, and yet, in his gray eyes there is still light.

She lies in bed as the dawn light cast shadows over her face making sharp contrasts over her features. She thinks he doesn't know that she lies awake most of the night because sleep is too painful for her. I have to let her get the sleep she can in the morning. So I dress quietly as I watch her sleep.

She is haunted by so much. She can't go home because of how often it rains, and she can no longer just run to the forest to roam. She's had her world taken from her because she refused to play the game that Snow wanted her to.

She told me once that everyone around her died, but not because she didn't want to turn out like Finnick Odair. Only her sister was killed for that, her mother died in an accident after wards, and she killed her own father.

She acts like she's past all that, but I know how when she's looking down at her hands, all that she can see is blood. I tell her she had no choice, but she snaps at me and says she could've died in the arena. It's true, she wouldn't have to live with memories of her games, but I guess I'm selfish, because I'm glad she's a Victor so that I have her now.

She has been through so much. She acts like she lives for nothing sometimes. When she was being tortured, she had no one to go home to, and after the water and electricity, she can't even go home.

She treats herself like a monster, but she's not, she's so much more to me. She life in itself. More than anyone I've ever known. She doesn't just exist, but lives. And she doesn't go on living for anything but for life itself.

Now, she won't admit it to anyone but she's helping rebuild some of the saw mills lost in fights in the wars. Not going to them directly but defending the people of District 7 in a new government. She still has fight in her, even if its not the type she's used to.

When she looks into a mirror all she can see is shadows from her past. She's become so much in this new world, if only she could see it too. There's still goodness under all that pain, she just hides it so deep that no one else can see it.

I lean down to gently kiss Johanna before I leave to keep this new life for us both.

She has seen so much darkness in the world, and yet, in her brown eyes there is still light.


End file.
